Petrograd, Defense Committee, to Zinoviev

In order to clarify the situation of affairs in Petrograd, the Council of Defense proposes that a comprehensive answer be given: on what grounds was the decision made to evacuate certain factories of Petrograd and its surroundings; by whom and why was the order given for the sinking of vessels; the total number of mobilized workers and those remaining at the factories; whether all those mobilized are actually being utilized for the needs of defense; what prompted the appointment of commissars to the state factories; was there an indiscriminate conscription of citizens or was it carried out in accordance with the decree of the central authority. The Council of Defense, while maintaining for the present the state of siege in Petrograd, hereby informs that the measures of the Defense Committee of Petrograd must be implemented with the knowledge of, and in appropriate cases with the consent of, the central authority 429.

Chairman of the Council of Defense Lenin

Written May 13, 1919

First published incompletely
June 16, 1939 in the newspaper
*Pravda* No. 155

Published in full in 1941
in the book "Documents on the Heroic
Defense of Petrograd in 1919"
Moscow

Printed according to the typewritten
text signed by
V. I. Lenin